I saw a glimpse of this before, last year, when I came head to head with the Whites over my stolen high school tuition. He must be blaming her for Sadie’s death, and to be honest, it kind of makes sense.
It’s because Sadie overdosed on my aunt Ellen’s pills that she died.
Ellen crosses her arms over her chest in a protective manner, and presses her mouth into a thin line, looking away from him in silence. He turns his eyes to me, and the coldness is gone from them. The chill I still feel, however, remains.
“It’s paid for, but it’s just sitting there, so I thought that …” He stops mid-sentence as Ellen shoots a look back at him. I can read their whole silent conversation just by watching them interact with one another. “… uh, we thought that you might use it. Someone should use it. It’s never been driven. We had it delivered here to the house and it arrived the day after Sadie …” He pauses and exhales slowly.
“This is the title, registration, and insurance information, as well as the keys. It’s waiting out in front for you when you leave. I’ve put you on our insurance, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
I blink at them in amazement. Good thing he did, because I wouldn’t just driven off without it. And I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m guessing if they got it for Sadie … one scratch would cost the same as a small mortgage to fix.
“I’m … I’m not sure what to say,” I begin, stammering a little as I take the envelope from him.
“Well, we’re just glad to have someone to give it to,” Ellen says, painting a smile on her face where there wasn’t one just a moment before. She stares at me, and I know that she’s seeing her daughter in me, and that it must be difficult.
There are photographs of Sadie all over the house. In this room alone, there’s a huge painting of Sadie with her mom and dad hanging over the massive fireplace. It’s kind creepy to me; like I’m looking at a painting of an alternate version of myself.
It’s so bizarre, and I don’t like it. The ghost of her is everywhere, and I feel like I’m still sort of standing in her shoes, even though I gave that lie up ages ago.
Ellen steps up and presses one hand to my shoulder, turning me towards the door a bit. She’s looking at me in that glassy-eyed way of hers that makes me squirm, almost as if she’s forgotten, for a moment, that I’m not actually Sadie.
“Now that that’s done, I thought that it would be fun for us to go out and have a little one-on-one time, you know … a girl’s day out. What do you think? Would you like to come along?” Ellen asks me, wide-eyed and hopeful.
I know that I can’t turn her down for so many reasons; she’s my family now, they’ve taken me in as their niece,
and they just gave me a car that was supposed to belong to their dead daughter. All very good reasons to say yes, even though I really want to say no.
That chill still hangs in the air between them, and I get the feeling this is some sort of game.
Why is it that everything with these people is never what it seems?
“Sure, why not?” I say. “After all, how long can it take?”
From the sound of Ellen’s laugh and the way she throws back her head like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard, I have a feeling this is gonna be a long one. I take a deep breath and force a smile on my own face. It’s going to be weird for a while no matter what. Might as well embrace it.
“Good. Your uncle has business things to take care of today, so we can spend all the time and money that we want to.” She shoots him a cool look, and then walks past me and sails toward the door. Now that’s something I never thought I’d hear.
And, admittedly, I do start to feel a little excited.
“Well come on then,” Dane says, “I’ll show you the car.”
Ellen stop him with a look and starts steering me towards the door. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
I give Dane a little wave as I’m dragged out behind her.
“Of course.” He says quietly, only half-looking at me as he eyes his departing wife with a judgmental look. Dane turns and walks behind his desk then, and I know that the conversation is done.
Shame. I would have really liked to see the car.
I know that Ellen’s serious about this girl’s day when we pass the local mall and onto the interstate—headed straight for Manhattan. I went there once last year, with Blair, but I never really got to see the city. The city I see today is not the one I imagined either.
Rather than exploring the gritty underbelly like I always imagined, my new aunt shows me the shop-lined avenues of the Upper West Side.
She chats to me the whole ride over, but very little is actually said. It’s like she’s afraid of silence. It wouldn’t be so bad if the drive didn’t take nearly three hours to begin with.
My ears are ringing by the time we finally pull up to a glittering salon.
I bribe the stylist into silence and emerge with a semblance of sanity returned—and a blowout that would make Victoria green with envy.